Salad days

Rose-breasted grosbeaks have arrived. Spring cleanup is underway. The outdoor Christmas greens were disposed of in the fire pit, together with many of the branches brought down by winter storms. A nesting bluebird in the back yard has been confirmed. The Better Half is planting spring annuals. Even the oaks are showing signs of leaf out. Soon the legislature will have finished their foul / fowl deeds and departed until next year.

male rose-breasted grosbeak

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning the Better Half gave me my summer haircut. During the Dark Winter Season, longer hair is needed to help keep my head warm. Winter parkas have been moved to the back of the closet. Soil temperatures are warm enough that mulching lawn leaves and leveling gopher mounds can be put on the schedule, followed by seeding bare spots in the front or back yards.

Yesterday’s CSA* share included:

• Watercress
• Baby Kale
• Microgreens
• Magenta Lettuce
• Tango Lettuce
• Winter-stored Russet Potatoes
• Winter-stored Carrots

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the plants are that have small yellow flowers that were in the box. Maybe we can share a photo tomorrow. The Better Half assures me that those plants are young broccoli raab.                       *Community Supported Agriculture

As happens all too often in our part of the North Country, temperatures will be jumping into the low 80s again this week for much of the week. If we could get more days without rain and with temperatures in the  upper 60s and low 70s for several weeks, managing the change from spring to summer(ish) would be much easier, but this is better than snow storms (unless you ask the Better Half). So, we’ll do this the way  we do with much of life, we’ll [try to] make the best of it.

To a Head of Lettuce

Amy Gerstler

May I venture to address you, vegetal friend?
A lettuce is no less than me, so I respect you,
though it’s also true I may make a salad of you,
later. That’s how we humans roll. Our species
is blowing it, bigtime, as you no doubt know,
dependent as you are on water and soil
we humans pollute. You’re a crisphead,
an iceberg lettuce, scorned in days of yore
for being mostly fiber and water. But new
research claims you’ve gotten a bad rap,
that you’re more nutritious than we knew.
Juicy and beautiful, your leaves can be used
as tortillas. If you peer through a lettuce leaf,
the view takes on the translucent green of
the newest shoots. Sitting atop your pile,
next to heaps of radicchio, you do seem
a living head, a royal personage who
should be paid homage. I am not demanding
to be reassured. I just want to know what you know,
what you think your role is—and hear what you
have to say about suffering long denied, the wisdom
of photosynthesis, stages of growth you’ve passed
through. I can almost hear your voice as I pay
for you at the cash register, a slightly gravely sound,
like Kendrick Lamar’s voice, or early Bob Dylan,
both singers of gruff poetic truth. Nothing less
was expected from you, sister lettuce, nothing less. 

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